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Lincoln Memoirs 



From the Log Cabin to 
the White House 



(By 



MARY M. HARRIS 

rl 



Copyright 1908 by M. M. Harris 



PHILLIPS BROS., PRINTERS 

SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 



\) 



feel that I cannot succeed 
without the Divine bless- 
ing, and on the Almighty Being 
I place my reliance for support. 

jJbraham Lincoln. 



£ .CI. A 2 S3 080 



To the colored people of America who have shown a 
just appreciation of their opportunities and responsibili- 
ties, this book is respectfully dedicated. 

MARY M. HARRIS. 



LINCOLN 



A new century has come, since Lincoln gave up his life 
for his country. All the conditions with which he was 
familiar have changed. America has become a world 
power, with all the responsibilities that the term implies. 

All things have become new. The bitter animosities, 
extreme partisanship and sectional hatred that was so 
long a part of public life, have given way to the resist- 
less spirit of progress. Those who were once bitter foes, 
meet to day in the world of business as friends. Nor is 
the love of gain the only incentive to this new relation- 
ship. 

Lincoln has won for himself a place in the hearts of 
the. people, who look back to those days, darkened by 
their passions, and see with a clearer vision the greatness 
of the work he wrought. 

They know now that it was not Lincoln's war, but 
their own. Time has proven to them that after all the 
great leader was their best friend. 

Calmer reasoning has convinced his critics that when 
Lincoln became president he put aside all thought of 
self and lived only for his stricken country. By the will 
of the people he became the head of the nation, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and navy and the arbitrator 
of eighty millions of people at the most trying period of 
the nation's history. 

How well he discharged the duties of his sacred office 
the past fifty years have shown. Lincoln neither sought 
nor desired the presidency. There were others, he said, 
better fitted for that exalted station than he. But his 



6 

friends and admirers thought otherwise. He had made 
the race for Congress with Douglas, but at the end of 
the campaign he found himself at the head of affairs 
when each day but added to the soul crushing responsi- 
bilities of those in power. 

With reluctance he faced a future where unknown 
dangers lurked at every turn. Overzealous friends 
argued " peace at any price," while those who opposed 
him, watchd with unsleeping vigilance for the first sign 
of breakdown. 

To those who knew him it was plain that to him the 
long, bloody war was a horror unspeakable. His heart 
went out to the brave men. north and south, who were 
willing to die for a principle. 

In spirit he marched beside them. At night his sad 
face gazed at them from out the smoke of their cam]) 
fires. He, too, was a soldier; and he sympathized with 
them in their hardships and privations. It must have 
eased somewhat his awful burden when he heard them 
singing as they tramped through the valleys and forests,' 
over the mountains and rivers, "we are coining Father 
Abraham, a hundred thousand strong." 

Though he prayed that "this awful scourge of war 
might quickly pass away," he showed no sign of weak- 
ness, but with the patience that characterized him, waited 
for the end. Perhaps he heard the same voice that spoke 
to Moses in the wilderness telling him to "go forward." 

Freedom for the slaves was a dream clear to the heart 
of Lincoln, but he put even that aside as he plead with 
them "come back, come back." He believed that every 
man, regardless of race, color or creed, had a God-given 
right to liberty and happiness. 

But he would not plunge the country into war nor pro- 
long the struggle a single day to gain his ends. He felt 
that in His own time the Lord would answer the fervent 
prayers that arose from these lowly people. 



Lincoln had faith in the negro. He believed that the 
colored man would work without a master. He knew that 
the habits of two hundred years would not be quickly set 
aside; that the characteristics that had made a faithful 
servant would make a good soldier, a good citizen. 

We might quote from Mr. Greeley's "American Con- 
flict," which describes at length the instant change that 
took place among the freedmen. "From the very first," 
Mr. Greeley says, "it was an evident fact that the black 
man would not become a public burden. Their first 
thought, strange at it may seem, was to provide schools 
for their children. They showed a spirit of thrift and 
progress that has astonished the whole world. 

They seemed to realize that they must make up for 
lost time. In their two hundred years of close associa- 
tion with the white race they had learned much that was 
good, and when the time came they were ready to put 
into practice the knowledge thus gained. Another char- 
acteristic that gave hope to their friends was, they har- 
bored no spirit of ill will against those who had wronged 
them. 

They put the past behind them with the determination 
to forget slavery and all its associations. Mr. Greeley 
says, "they showed no vengeful or retaliatory spirit. On 
the contrary, they seemed to feel themselves obligated to 
work and care for the dead master's widow and children 
who, by the death of father and husband and the loss of 
the slaves, were left helpless and destitute. • Hundreds of 
these would have perished except for the loyal servants 
that refused freedom that would separate them from 
those who needed them so sorely. Thus was laid forever 
the ghost that had haunted the white man's pillows. A 
"negro uprising" there never was at any time, danger 
to the people of the south from the slaves. 

Some one has written a story that fully illustrates the 
real condition between the races in the south that has 
never existed anywhere else before and never will again. 



8 

Two men, master and slave, had grown up together. Each 
was without family ties and each was dependent on the 
other. When the white man was down with the fever, 
the colored man was kept on the go, day and night ; noth- 
ing pleased the master, but after a time the sick man re- 
covered and the black man took the fever and now it was 
the master's turn to bring water from the northeast 
corner of the well ; and turn the pillows forty times a 
day. 

The colored man would chuckle gleefully and say, "De 
bottom rail on top at las'." When both were well and 
summer had come with its long sunny days, there might 
have been seen under cover of the darkness, two figures 
stealing away from the "big house." It was the master 
and his slave running away together. 

Of course, there are two sides to every picture, and 
Harriet Beecher Stowe has shown the world both sides. 
Life at the St. Clair's was a perpetual picnic. On the 
other hand, it was the Legree type of slave owner that 
made the slave trade a horror unspeakable; a condition 
that not even Dante could portray. 

In his "Man with the Hoe," Mr. Markham has shown 
what centuries of toil, poverty and ignorance will do by 
way of reducing man to the level of the brutes. But this 
was not true of the emancipated slaves. The first school 
privileges enjoyed by the poor whites of the south was 
secured to them by the freedmen. The greatest educator 
the world has ever seen, was born a slave. 

In every community there are honest, upright colored 
citizens. On the tax lists, on the census returns the names 
of colored people represent millions of dollars. All these 
go to show that Lincoln's faith and hope in the colored 
man was not without foundation. It shows, too, that the 
colored people have proven themselves able to fend for 
themselves. They have not proven a burden, but on the 
contrary, have added millions to the nation's wealth. 



The colored people have advanced faster and have 
made greater progress than any race under similar con- 
ditions. Only two generatians from slavery, yet they 
are far in advance of other alien people. In competitive 
examinations, they more than hold their own. In the 
professions they are every where represented, while in 
the industrial field they have proven far more active and 
enterprising than the white man of the same class. To 
sum up the negro as he is today, fifty years after free- 
dom, he stands on a firm foundation of his own building. 
He is the proud possessor of houses and lands, money and 
mules. He is a taxpayer and law maker. He is in every 
way a part of the great commonwealth of America. 

In freeing the slaves Mr. Lincoln did the south a 
greater favor than they realize even yet. The slave popu- 
lation had outgrown its territory. The north refused to 
admit them; so that what was already a great problem 
would soon have become a greater one. Then, again, 
under free labor conditions, the south has enjoyed greater 
prosperity than would ever have been possible under the 
old order of things. The people are no longer divided 
by party lines. When they met at Lincoln \s tomb on the 
one hundredth anniversary of his birth they thought of 
him only as the great benefactor of mankind; the man 
who had saved his country and his flag; who had freed 
two races ; one from the galling chains of slavery, the 
other from an environment no less degrading. 

Those who look back at those trying times know now 
whatever mistakes they might have made then, that he 
acted for the best. In taking the oath of office he became 
president of the south as well as the north and that in 
bringing them back into the Union he was only doing the 
work he had been elected to do. 

Be that as it may, he gave every man justice. For this 
the world honors him. People think that for the smallest 
favor they should be rewarded, but Lincoln neither looked 



10 

for or expected reward, other than the success of his 
efforts. 

With the passing of slavery, America parted forever 
with things primeval. Up to that time the forms of 
government established by the colonists had been suffi- 
cient, but the time had come for a change. The first half 
of the nineteenth century marked the end of the forma- 
tive period in American history. Slavery had been an 
incubus that sapped the energy of the people. It hung 
over the land like a pall. It dwarfed, crippled and blinded 
its friends and its foes. 

The people of America who for two hundred years had 
lived in a land "half free, half slave," had been like a 
man who starts to run a race with one foot shackled. 
That all absorbing question, "slavery or freedom," was 
ever present, It sat a grim spector at their feasts, it 
haunted their dreams at night, A malign influence that 
finally drove men forth to drench the land with blood, to 
burn and destroy. War was the extreme sacrifice offered 
by the American people to atone for the sin of slavery. 
And Lincoln ended the solemn ceremony by laying his 
own body on the funeral pyre, that his country might be 
born again to better things, and God has answered his 
prayer a thousand fold. 

Those who kept the siege before the gates of Troy of- 
fered their lives to gain the favor of the gods. But they 
were myths. They lived only in the songs of the poets 
or the declamatory efforts of our school days. Lincoln 
the real hero, came to us from the infinite spaces where 
God dwells, crowned with the wisdom of the ages, and 
able to see beyond the confines of his own time and realize 
that somewhere in the future the north and the south 
would bury forever old differences and antagonisms and 
meet again, a reunited people, in perfect reconciliation. 

Even now the people are beginning to know the emanci- 
pator and to realize what his life and his death means to 
the world. But a more gifted pen than mine shall tell 
the real storv of Lincoln. M. M. Harris. 



11 




Booth, the Great Actor of His Dav 



12 



EXTRACTS FROM LINCOLN'S SPEECHES 

The following Speeches and Poems 
are used by courtesy of Mr. 
Oldroyd, and are taken from his 
"Album Immortelles." 



13 



LINCOLN'S FIRST POLITICAL ADDRESS WHEN 
A CANDIDATE FOR THE ILLINOIS LEGIS- 
LATURE IN 1832. 

"Gentlemen, fellow citizens, I presume you know who 
I am, I am humble Abraham Lincoln, I have been soli- 
cited by many friends to become a candidate for the 
Legislature. My politics can be briefly, stated. Lam in 
favor of the internal improvement system, and a high 
protective tariff. Those are my sentiments and political 
principles. If elected, I shall be thankful ; if not, it will 
be all the same." 



EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT 
GALESBURG, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 7, 1858. 

"I have all the while maintained that in so far as it 
should be insisted that there was an equality between the 
white and black races that should produce a perfect social 
and political equality, it was an impossibility. This you 
have seen in my printed speeches, and with it I have said 
that in their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness," as proclaimed in that Declaration, the in- 
ferior races are our equals. And these declarations I 
have constantly made in reference to the abstract moral 
question, to contemplate and consider when we are legis- 
lating about any new country which is not already cursed 
with the actual present of evil— slavery. I have never 
manifested any impatience with the necessities that 
spring from the actual presence of black people 
among us, and the actual existence of slavery among us, 
where it does already exist, but I have insisted that, in 



14 




THE LINCOLN FAMILY. 



This picture is familiar to most people. It shows Lincoln as 
his old friends and neighbors knew him, in his home in Spring- 
field. 

One may well imagine the love and pride the great emanci- 
pator took in his three hoys, Robert, William and Thomas. Had 
they all lived to do their life work, history would have read 
different to what it reads todav. 



15 

legislating for new countries, where it does not exist, 
there is no just rule, other than that of moral and abstract 
right. With reference to those new countries, those 
maxims as to the right of a people to "life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness" were the just rules to be con- 
stantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this 
except by men interested to misunderstand it. I take it 
that I have to- address an intelligent and reading com- 
munity, who will pursue what I say, weigh it and then 
judge whether I advance improper or unsound views, or 
whether 1 advance hypocritical and deceptive and con- 
trary views in different portions of the country. I be- 
leive myself to be guilty of no such thing as the latter, 
though, of course, T can not claim that I am entirely free 
from all error in the opinions I advance. 

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that 
Mr. Clay, when he was once answering an objection to 
the colonization society, that ultimate emancipation of 
the slaves, said that "those who would repress all ten- 
dencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, must do 
more than put down the benevolent efforts of the coloni- 
zation society— they must go back to the era of our 
liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that 
thunders its annual joyous return— they must blot out 
the moral light around us— they must penetrate the hu- 
man soul and eradicate the light of reason, and the love 
of liberty" and I do think— I repeat, though I said it on 
a former occasion that Judge Douglass and whoever, like 
him, teaches that the negro has no share, humble though 
it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, and so far 
as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its an- 
nual joyous returns; that he is blowing out the moral 
lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants 
slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating 
so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicat- 
ing the right of reason and love of liberty, when he is in 
every possible way preparing the public mind, by his 



16 

vast influence, for making the institution of slavery per- 
petual and national. 

And now, it only remains for mo to say that it is a very 
grave question for the people of this Union to consider 
whether, in view of this fact, that this slavery question 
has been the only one that has ever advanced our Repub- 
lican institutions— the only one that has ever threatened 
or menaced a dissolution of the Union— that has ever dis- 
turbed us in such a way as to make us fear for the per- 
petuity of our liberty— in view of these facts, I think it 
is an exceedingly interesting and important question for 
this people to consider whether we shall engage in the 
policy of acquiring additional territory, disregarding al- 
together from our consideration, while obtaining new ter- 
ritory, the question how it may effect us in regard to this, 
the only endangering element to our liberties and national 
greatness. The Judge's view has been expressed; I, in 
my answer to his question, have expressed mine. I think 
it will become an important and practical question. Our 
views are before the public. I am willing and anxious 
that they should consider them fully— that they should 
turn it about and consider the importance of the ques- 
tion and arrive at a just conclusion as to whether it is 
or is not wise in the people of this Union, in the acquisi- 
tion of new territory, to consider whether it will add to 
the disturbance that is existing among us— whether it 
will add to the one only danger that lias ever threatened 
the perpetuity of the Union, or of our own liberties. 

T think it is extremely important that they shall decide 
and rightly decide that that question before entering that 
imiicv. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT 

QUINOY, ILLINOIS. OCTOBER 13, 1858. 

I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge 

Douglas and [ were to have these seven joint discussions, 

that they were the successive acts of a drama— perhaps 



17 

I should say, to be enacted not merely in the face of 
audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, and to 
some extent, by my relation to him, and not from any- 
thing in myself, in tiie face of the world— and T am 
anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and 
in good temper, which would be befitting the vast audi- 
ences before which it was conducted. I was not entirely 
sure that I should he able to hold my own with him, but 
T at least had the purpose made to do as well as I could 
upon him ; and now I say that I will not be the first to 
cry "hold." I think it originated with the Judge, and 
when he quits I probably will. But I shall not ask any 
favors at ail. He asks me, or he asks the audiences, if 
] wish to push this matter to the point of personal diffi- 
culty f I tell him, no. He did not make a mistake, in 
one of his early speeches, when he called me an amiable 
man, though perhops he did when he called me an "in- 
telligent" man. It really hurts me very much to suppose 
that I have wronged anybody on earth. I again tell him 
no. T very much prefer, when this canvas shall be over, 
however it may result, that we at least part without any 
bitter recollections of personal difficulties. 

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. 
Tt is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing 
element. It is the opinion of all the great men who have 
expressed an opinion upon it that it is a dangerous ele- 
ment. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That 
controversy necessarily springs from differences of 
opinion, an dif we can learn exactly— can reduce to the 
lowest elements— what that difference of opinion is we, 
perhaps, shall be better prepared for discussing the dif- 
ferent system of policy that we would propose in regard 
to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference 
of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than 
the difference between the men who think slavery is a 
wrong and those who do not think it wrong. We think 
it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons 



18 

or the states where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its 
tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to the 
existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wrong 
we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a 
wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so 
far as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal 
with it that in the run of time there may be some promise 
of an end to it. We have a due regard to the actual 
presence of it among us and the difficulties of geeting rid 
of it in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional 
obligations thrown about it. I suppose that in reference 
both to its actual existence in the nation and to our 
constitutional obligations, we have no right at all to dis- 
turb it in the states where it existes, and we profess that 
we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have 
the right to do it. We go farther than that, we don't 
propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think the 
constitution would permit us. We think the constitution 
would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. 
Still, we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in 
terms which T don't suppose the nation is very likely 
soon to agree to— the terms of making the emancipation 
gradual and compensating the un-willing owners. Where 
we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain 
ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the in- 
stitution and the difficulties thrown about it. We also 
oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself. 
We insist on the policy that shall restrict it to its present 
limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we violate 
anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or 
anything due to the constitutional guaranties thrown 
around it. 



19 




20 

SPEECH BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE OF PENN- 
SYLVANIA. AT HARRISBURG, FEBRUARY 

22, 1861. 

I have already gone through one exceedingly interest- 
ing scene this morning, in the ceremonies at Philadelphia. 
Under the high conduct of gentlemen there I was for the 
first time allowed the privilege of standing in old Inde- 
pendence Hall, to have a few words addressed to me 
there, and opening up to me an opportunity of express- 
ing, with much regret, that I had not more time to ex- 
press something of my own feelings, excited by the oc- 
casion, somewhat to harmonize and give shape to the feel- 
ings that had been really the feelings of my whole life. 
Besides this, our friends there had provided a magnifi- 
cent flag of our country; they had arranged so that I was 
given the honor of raising it to the head of the staff. And, 
when it went up I was pleased that it went to its place 
by the strength of my own feeble arm, when, according 
to the arrangements, the cord was pulled, and it floated 
gloriously to the wind, without an accident, in the light, 
glowing sunshine of the morning, I could not help hoping 
that there was in the entire success of the beautiful cere- 
mony at least something of an omen of what is to come. 
How could I help feeling, then, as I often have felt? In 
the whole of that proceeding I was a very humble instru- 
ment, I had not provided the flag, I had not made the 
arrangements for elevating it to its place; I had applied 
but a very small portion of my feeble strength in raising 
it. In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the 
people who had arranged it, and, if 1 can have the same 
generous co-operation of the people of the nation, I think 
the flag of our country may yet be kept flaunting glor- 
iously. It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate 
the possibility that a necessity may arise in this country 
for the use of the military arm. While I am exceedingly 
gratified to see the manifestation upon your streets of 
your military force here and exceedingly gratified at your 



21 

promise here to use that force upon a proper emer- 
gency—while I make these acknowledgements I desire 
to repeat, in order to preclude any possible misconstruc- 
tion, that I do most sincerely hope that we shall have no 
use for them. Most especially never to shed fraternal 
blood. 1 promise that, so far as 1 may have wisdom to 
direct, if so painful a result in anywise be brought about, 
it shall be through no fault of mine. 



SPEECH AT ALTON, ILLINOIS, OCTOBEE 15, 1858. 

On this subject of treating slavery as a wrong, and 
limiting its spread, le tnie say a word. Has anything 
ever threatened the existence of this Union save and 
except this very institution of slavery? What is it that 
we hold most dear among us ? Our own liberty and pros- 
per! v. YVhat has ever threatened our liberty and pros- 
perity, save and except this institution of. slavery? If 
this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition 
of things by enlarging slavery? By spreading it out and 
making it bigger! You may have a wen or cancer upon 
your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed 
to death, but surely it is no way to cure it to ingraft it 
and spread it over your whole body— that is no proper 
way of treating what you regard a wrong. You see. this 
peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong— restricting 
the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new coun- 
tries where it has not already existed that is the peace- 
ful way. the old-fashioned way, the way in which the 
fathers themselves set us the example. 

"Is slavery wrong?' That is the real issue. That is 
the issue that will continue in this country, when these 
poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be 
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two prin- 
ciples—right and wrong— throughout the wor'd. They 
are two principles that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. 



99 



The one is the common right of humanity, and the other, 
the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
whatever shape it developes itself. It is the same spirit 
that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll 
eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from 
the mouth of a king, who seeks to bestride the people of 
his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or 
from one race of men as an apology for enslaving an- 
other race, it is the same tyrannical principle. 

I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish; I do not pre- 
tend that I would not like to go to the United States 
Senate; I make no such hypocritical pretense; but I do 
say to you, that in this mighty issue, it is nothing to the 
mass of people of the nation whether or not Judge Doug- 
las or myself shall ever be heard of after this night, it 
ma ybe a trifle to either of us, but in connection with this 
mighty question, upon which hangs the destinies of the 
nations, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing. 



FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, 
OHIO, SEPTEMBER, 1859. 

Public opinion in this country is everything. In a na- 
tion like ours this popular sovereignty and squatter sov- 
ereignty have already wrought a change in the public 
mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this 
crowd who can contradict it. Now, if you are opposed 
to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I ask you to 
note that fact and the like of which is to follow to be 
plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you are 
prepared to deal with the negro everywhere as with the 
brute. If public sentiment has not been debauched al- 
ready to this point, a new turn of the screw in that di- 
rection is all that is wanting; and this is constantly being 
done by the teachers of this insidious popular sovereign- 
tv. You need but one or two turns further until your 
minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready 



23 

for all these things, and you will receive and support or 
submit to the slave trade, revived with all its horrors, 
a slave code enforced in our territories, and a new Dred 
Scott decision to bring slavery up into the very heart of 
the free north. This, I must say, is but carrying out 
those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay, many, 
many years ago— I believe more than thirty years— when 
he told his audience that if they would repress all ten- 
dencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must 
go back to the era of our in dependence and muzzle the 
cannon which thunders its annual joyous return on the 
Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights 
around us; they must penetrate the human soul and 
eradicate the love of liberty; but until they did these 
things, and others eloquently enumerated by him, they 
could not repress all tendencies to ultimate emancipation. 
I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree 
these popular sovereigns are at this work, blowing out 
the moral lights around us, teaching that the negro is no 
longer a man, but a brute; that the Declaration has noth- 
ing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocidile and 
the reptile; that man with body and soul, is a matter of 
dollars and cents. 



LINCOLN BEADING THE EMANCIPATION PROC- 
LAMATION TO HIS CABINET, SEPT. 22. 

Gentlemen— I have, as you are aware, thought a great 
deal about the relation of this war to slavery, and you 
will remember that several weeks ago I read to you an 
order I had prepared upon the subject, which on account 
of objections made by some of you, was not issued. Ever 
since then my mind has been much occupied with this 
subject, and I have thought all along that the time for 
acting on it might probably come. I think the time has 
come now. Iwish it was a better time. I wish that we 
were in a better condition. The action of the army 



24 

against the rebeis has not been quite what I should have 
besl Liked, but they have been driven out of Maryland, 
and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion. 

When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined 
as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland to issue 
a proclamation of emancipation, such as I thought most 
likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one, but I made 
a promise to myself and (hesitating a little) to my 
Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am 
going to fulfill that promise. I have got you together to 
hear what I have written down. I do not wish you to 
advise about the main matter for that I have determined 
myself. This, I say, without intending anything but re- 
spect for any one of you. But I already know the views 
of each of you on this question. They have been hereto- 
fore expressed, and I 'have considered them as thoroughly 
and carefully as I can. "What I have written is that which 
my reflections have determined me to say. If there is 
anything in the expressions I use, or in any minor metter, 
which any one of you think had best be changed, I shall 
be glad to receive your suggestions. One other observa- 
tion 1 will make. I know very well that many others 
might, in this matter, as in others, do better than I can. 
and if T was satisfied that the public confidence was more 
fully possessed by any one of them than by me, and 
knew of any constitutional way in which he could be put 
in my place, he could have it. I would gladly yield to him. 
But though I believe T have not so much of the confidence 
of the peopel as T had some time ago, I do not know that, 
all things considered, another person has more; and, 
however this may be, there is no way in which I can 
have any other man put where T am. T am here; I must 
do the best T can, and bear the responsibility of taking 
the course which T feel I ought to take. 



25 



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26 

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, JANUARY 1, 

1863. 

Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year 
of our Lord, 1862, a proclamation was issued by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, containing, among other 
things, the following, to-wit: That, on the first day of 
January, 1863, all persons held as slaves, within any 
state or designated part of a state, the people whereof 
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall 
be thenceforth and forever free, and the executive 
government of the United States, including the military 
and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain 
the freedom of such persons; and will do no act or acts 
to repress such persons, or any of them, in any effort 
they may make for their actual freedom, that the execu- 
tive will, on the first day of January, aforesaid, issue a 
proclamation, designating states and parts of states, if 
any, in which the people therein, respectively, shall be in 
rebellion against the United States, and the fact that any 
state or the people thereof shall, on that day, be in good 
faith represented in the Congress of the United States 
by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a ma- 
jority of the qualified voters of such states shall have 
participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervail- 
ing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such 
states and the people thereof are not in rebellion against 
the United States. 

Now, therefore, T, Abraham Lincoln- President of the 
United States, by cirtue of the power vested in me as 
commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in a time of 
actual armed rebellion against the authority of the 
government of the United States, as a fit and necessary 
war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 
first day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1863. and in 
accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed 
for the full period of one hundred days from the date of 
the first above mentioned order, designate as the states 



27 

and parts of states therein, the people whereof, respec- 
tively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, 
the following, to-wit: Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana 
(except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jeffer- 
son, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assump- 
tion, Terrebome, La Fourche, St. Mary, St. Martin and 
Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 
lina and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties desig- 
nated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, 
Accomac, North Hampton, Elizabeth City, York, Prin- 
cess Anne and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk 
and Portsmouth), which excepted parts are for the 
present left precisely as if this proclamation were not 
issued; and by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as 
slaves within designated states, or parts of states, are, 
and henceforward shall be free, and that the executive 
government of the United States, including the military 
and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain 
the freedom of the said persons; and T hereby enjoin 
upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all 
violence, unless in necessary self-defense, and I will 
recommend to them that, in all cases where allowed, they 
labor faithfully for reasonable wages ; and I further de- 
clare and make known that such persons of suitable con- 
ditions will be received into the armed service of the 
United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations and 
other places ; and to man vessels of all sorts in said ser- 
vice. And upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of 
justice, warranted by the constitution upon military 
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind. 
And the gracionus favor of Almighty God. 

Tn witness whereof T have hereunto set my hand and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 



28 

Done at the city of Washington, this first day of Janu- 
ary, in the year of our Lord, 1863, and of the Indepen- 
dence of the United States of America, the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO THE CITI- 
ZENS OF SPRINGFIELD ON HIS DEPARTURE 
FOR WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 11, 1861. 

My Friends: Xo one. not in my position, can appre- 
ciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people 
I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a 
quarter of a century; here my children were horn and 
here one of them lies buried. I konw not how soon I shall 
see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, per- 
haps, greater than that which devolved upon any other 
man since the days of Washington. He never would 
have succeeded except by the aid of Divine Providence, 
upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I can not 
succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, 
and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for 
support, and I hope you, my friends, will pray that 1 may 
receive that Divine assistance, without which I can not 
succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid 
von an affectionate farewell. 



A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, of 
boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no mo- 
tive apart from his country, he could receive counsel from 
a child and give counsel to a sage. The simple ap- 
proached him with ease and the learned approached him 
with deference. Take him for all in all, Abraham Lincoln 
was one of the noblest, wisest and best men I ever knew. 

Fred. K. Douglas, 

Oldroud's Album, Washington, 1880. 



29 






~>. 




I 4» ■*■ +*f 



**'4"* 




L 



This chair was part of the parlor furniture in the Lincoln home, 
and is now owned by Mr. Gunther, of Chicago. 



30 



LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM. 



Oli! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 

Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave. 

He passed from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willoAV shall fade, 
Be scattered around and together be laid; 

And the young and the old and the low and the high, 
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie. 

The infant, a mother attended and loved ; 

The mother, that infant's affection who proved; 
The husband, that mother and infant who blest, 

Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest. 

The maid, on whose cheek, on whose mrow, in whose eye, 
Shone beauty and pleasure — her triumphs are by, 

and the memory of those who loved her and praised, 
Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 

The hands of the king that the scepter hath borne, 
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn, 

The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave. 

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, 

The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep, 

The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, 
Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven, 
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven, 

The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 
Have cpiietly mingled their bones in the dust. 

So the multitude goes like the flower or the weed. 
That withers away to let others succeed; 

So the multitude comes — even those we behold, 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 



31 

For we are the same as oud fathers have been ; 

We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
We drink the same stream, Ave view the same sun, 

And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think ; 

From the death we are shinking our fathers would shrink. 
To the life we are clinging, ihey also would cling, 

But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

They loved — but the story we can not unfold ; 

They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold; 
They grieved — but no wail from their slumber will come ; 

They joyed — but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

They died — aye, they died — we things that are now, 
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 

And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 

Yea ! Hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain. 

And the smile an dthe tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other like surge after surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye — 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossoms of health to the paleness of death ; 

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud. 
Oh ! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

Lincoln Memorial Album, Oldroyd. 



REPLY TO A COMMITTEEE OF LOYAL COLORED 

PEOPLE OF BALTIMORE, PRESENTING THE 

PRESIDENT WITH A BIBLE COSTING 

$580. 

October, 1864. 

I can only say now, as I have often said before, that it 

has always been a sentiment with me that all mankind 

should be free. So far as I have been able, or so far as 

came within my sphere, I have always acted as I believed 



32 

was right and just, and have done all I could for the good 
of mankind. J have in letters and documents sent forth 
from this office expressed myself better than I can now. 
In regard to the Great Book I have only to say that it is 
the best gift which God has given to man. All the good 
from the Savior of the world is communicatedto us 
through this book. But for this book we could not know 
right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are 
contained in it. 



ADDRESS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYS- 
BURG, NOVEMBER 19, 1863. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, 
testing whether that nation or any other nation, so con- 
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met 
on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate 
a portion of it as the final resting place of those who 
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is alto- 
gether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not 
consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here have conse- 
crated it far above our power to add or detract. The 
world will little note, nor long remember what we say 
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the un- 
til li si ied work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us— that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to the cause for which they here 
gave the last full measure of devotion— that we highly 
resolve that all the dead shall have not died in vain— that 
the nation shall, under God. have a new birth of freedom, 
and that the government of the people, by the people and 
for the people shall not perish from the earth. 




NANCY HANKS LINCOLN. 

Those who knew Mr. Lincoln often heard him say, "All that 
I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." From his 
own lips the world heard the story of her life of self-sacrifice and 
devotion. How she took into her mother heart the lonely neg- 
lected boy and taught him by precept and example those high 
ideals that were in after life to make the vast difference between 
Lincoln and his conferees. 



?A 




MARY TODD LINCOLN. 

Mary Todd Lincoln belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest 
families in Illinois, and was a great help to Lincoln, both socially 
and politically. She always regarded him as a great man. It 
was no surprise to her when he was elected president. It was 
the death knell to her own future hope and happiness when she 
said, "They have shot the president.*' 



35 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE 
FOURTH DAY OF MARCH, 1861. 

Apprehension seems to exist, among the people of the 
southern states that by the accession of a Republican ad- 
ministration their property and their peace and personal 
security are to be endangered. There has never been any 
reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the 
most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while 
existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in 
nearly all the published speeches of him- who now ad- 
dresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches 
when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or in- 
directly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to 
do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who 
nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that 
I had made this and many similar declarations, and had 
never recanted them. 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruc- 
tion of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain 
precisely why we do it ? Will you hazard so desperate 
a step while there is any possibility that any portion of 
the ills you fly from have no real existence! Will you, 
while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the 
real ones you fly from— will you risk the commission of 
so fearful a mistake? 

Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor build 
an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife 
may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond 
the reach of each other, but the different parts of our 
country can not do this. They can not but remain face 
to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must 
continue between them. Is it impossible, then, to that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory 
after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties 



36 

easier than friends can make laws! Can treaties be more 
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among 
friends ? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight 
always ; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old ques- 
tions, as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix 
terms for the separation of the states. The people them- 
selves can do this also if they choose; but the executive, 
as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to adminis- 
ter the present government as it came to his hands, and 
to transmit it unimpaired by him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is 
either party without faith of being in the right! If the 
Almighty Ruler of nations, with His eternal truth and 
justice, be on your side of the north, or yours of the south, 
that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the 
judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. 

By the form of the government under which we live, 
the same people have wisely given their public servants 
but little power for mischief ; and have with equal wisdom 
provided for the return of that little to their own hands 
at very short intervals. While the people retain their 
virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme 
of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the 
government in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by 
taking time. If there be au object to hurry any of you in 
hot haste to a step which you would not take deliberately, 
that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good 
can he frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatis- 
fied still have the old constitution unimpaired, and, on 
the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under 



37 

it; while the new administration with no immediate 
power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted 
that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the 
dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipi- 
tate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity and a 
firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this 
favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best 
way, all our present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and 
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The 
government will not assail you. 

You can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to 
destroy the government, while I shall have the most 
solemn one to ''preserve, protect and defend" it. 

I am loathe to close. We are not' enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every 
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they 
will be, by the better angels of our natures. 



38 



TOLLING. 



Tolling, tolling, tolling! 

All the bells of the land! 
Lo ! the patriot martyr 

Taketh his journey grand. 
Travels into the ages, 

Bearing a hope, how dear! 
Into life's unknown vistas, 

Liberty's great pioneer. 

Tolling, tolling, tolling! 

See, they come as a claud, 
Hearts of a mighty people, 

Bearing his pall and shrond, 
Lifting up like a banner 

Signs of loss and woe ; 
Wonder of breathless nations, 

moveth the solemn show. 

Tolling, tolling, tolling ! 

Was it, oh man beloved, 
Was it thy funeral only 

Over the land that moved? 
Veiled by that hour of anguish, 

Borne with the rebel rout, 
Forth into utter darkness, 

Slavery's corse went out. 

—Lucy Larcom, Oldroyd's Memorial Album. 



39 




40 



LINCOLN'S FUNERAL. 



For ten days a large number of men and women worked 
almost night and day in decorating the State House. The 
whole building was draped in mourning on the exterior, 
and the rotunda and Representatives' hall on the in- 
terior, and the entrance of the Governor's room, the 
rooms of the Secretary of State, Auditor of State and 
Superintendent of Public Instruction. Part of the time 
there were one hundred and fifty persons at work. The 
ladies of Springfield bore their full share in these arduous 
labors. I have been furnished with the following figures 
by a prominent citizen of this city who prepared some of 
the designs for decoration. I shall not attempt a de- 
scription of the ornamental work, but will give a few 
facts by which some idea of their gorgeous beauty may be 
conveyed. About fifteen hundred yards of black and 
white goods were used in the decoration, exclusive of the 
catafalque. In its construction and decoration black 
cloth, black velvet, black, blue and white silk and crape, 
with silver stars and silver lace and fringe, were used in 
the greatest profusion. The canopy of the catafalque 
was made of velvet, festooned with satin and silver fringe. 
It was lined on the under side with blue silk, studded with 
silver stars. Three hundred yards of velvet and mourn- 
ing goods and three hundred yards of silver lace and 
fringe, besides a vast quantity of other materials, were 
used in its construction. Each of the six columns was 
sumounted with a rich plume. 

Evergreens and flowers, interspersed with crape, hung 
in festoons from capitols, columns and cornices in all 
parts of the building. Two hundred vases of natural 
flowers in full bloom, emitted their fragrance throughout 



41 

the edifice. Nearly all of them were furnished free of 
cost by Michael Doyle, horticulturalist, of Springfield. 
Mottoes and inscriptions were displayed at various 
places about the hall, but I can only give place to two of 
them : 

"Washing-ton, the father, Lincoln the savior." 
"Rather than surrender that principle I would be 
assassinated on this spot." 

The Governor's mansion, the old Lincoln residence, 
the military headquarters of Gen. Cook and Gen. Oakes, 
were decorated, externally, similar to the State House. 
Of twenty thousand dollars appropriated by the city 
of Springfield, to be expended in preparations for the 
funeral, less than fifteen thousand were used. Part of it 
was expended in building the temporary vault on the 
new State House grounds, paying railroad charges on 
some carriages from Jacksonville, the hearse from St. 
Louis, and the expenses of musicians and the orator, but 
much of the largest portion of the whole amount was laid 
out in decorating the buildings above mentioned. This, 
however, was only a small part- of the money thus ex- 
pended, for the whole city was draped in mourning, busi- 
ness houses, private residences and all, and in many in- 
stances they were as richly decorated as the public 
buildings. 

It was well known that the hotels could not accommo- 
date a tithe of the strangers who would be in attendance, 
and private families who could do so, made preparations 
and invited to their houses such as could not otherwise 
be provided for. The six organizations of Free Masons 
in Springfield, viz : four lodges, one chapter and one com- 
mandery, made equal appropriations from their several 
treasureies, procured one of the largest halls in the city, 
filled it with tables ,and kept them supplied with well 
cooked food prepared by the families of their members. 
This dining hall was intended to be free to Masons only 



42 

who should be in attendance, but many others partook 
of their bounty also. As for sleeping, there was not much 
of that done in Springfield on the night the remains of 
Lincoln were exposed to view. 

Strangers who were in the city on this occasion for the 
first time, almost invariably visited the former residence 
of Abraham Lincoln, at the northeast corner of Eighth 
and Jackson streets. 

As already stated, it was elaborately and tastefully 
decorated with the national colors and insignia of sorrow. 
The committee of escort from Chicago, numbering one 
hundred, although business engagaments prevented part 
of their number visiting Springfield— assembled near the 
residence and had their photographs taken in a group in 
connection with the house, to be preserved as a memorial 
of their mournful visit. The photograph was by an 
artist from Chicago, who accompanied the escort to 
Springfield for the purpose of taking views of the State 
House, the closing scenese at Oak Badge, and other ob- 
jects of interest. 

From the time the coffin was opened, at ten o'clock on 
the morning of May third, there was no cessation of visi- 
tors. All through the still hours of the night, no human 
voices were heard except in subdued tones ; but the tramp, 
tramp of busy feet, as men and women filed through the 
State House, up one flight of stairs and through the hall, 
and down another stairway, testified the love and venera- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln in the hearts of his old friends 
and neighbors. While the closing scenes were being 
enacted, a choir of two hundred and fifty singers, accom- 
panied by Lebrun's Washington band, of twenty per- 
formers, from St. Louis, assembled on the steps of the 
capitol, and, under direction of Professor Meissner sang 
" Peace Troubled Soul." 

The coffin was closed at ten o'clock on the morning of 
May 4th, and while it was being conveyed to the hearse, 



43 




xn 






44 

the choir sang Pleyel 's Hymn, ' ' Children of the Heavenly 
King. ' ' 

The funeral procession was then formed in the follow- 
ing order, under the immediate direction of Major Gen- 
eral Joseph Hooker, marshal-in-chief: 

Brig. Gen. John Cook and staff, Brig. Gen. James 
Oakes and staff, military, funeral escort. 

First Division-Col. C. M. Provost, 16th Reg. V. R. C, 
marshal. Aides: Lieut, Thomas B. Beach, A. A. A.; Gen. 
Ma;j. Horace Holt, 1st Mass. Heavy Artillery; Capt. J. 
C. Remison, 15th N. Y. Cavalry; Capt. E. C. Raymond, 
124th 111. Inf.; Capt. Eddy, 95th 111. Inf.; Lieut. H. N. 
Schlick, a st N. Y. Dragoons. 

This division consisted entirely of infantry, cavalry 
and artillery. 

Second Division— Maj. F. Bridgman, Pay Department 
TJ. S. Army, marshal. Aides: Maj. R. W. McClaughry 
and Maj. W. W. White. 

This division was composed of officers and enlisted men 
of the army and navy, not otherwise assigned, officers 
in uniform and side arms. Maj. Gen. John A. McCler- 
nand was the marshal of the civic department of the pro- 
cession. Aides : Lieut. Col. Schwartz, Capt. Henry Jayne, 
Capt. R. Rudolph, Capt. Benjamin Ferguson, Hon. 
Charles Keys, W. M. Springer, E. E. Myers, Ed. L. Mer- 
rit, N. Higgins. 

Third Division — Col. Dudley Wickersham, of the 1st 
Army Corps, marshal. Aides : Joshua Rodgers, Isaac 
A. Hawley, W. F. Kimber, J. B. Perkins. 

Marshals of Sections — Col. W. S. Barnum, Capt. A. J.. 
Allen. Col. S. N. Hitt, Clinton L. Conkling, Robert P. 
Officer, W. Smith and Capt. T. G. Barnes. 

Orator of the day and officiating clergymen— Rev. Dr. 
Simpson, Bishop of the M. E. Church and orator of the 
day; Rev. Dr. Gurley, Rev. Dr. N. W. Miner, Rev. Dr. 
Harkey, Rev. Albert Hale, Rev. A. C. Hubbard and others. 



45 




The house in Washing-ton where Lincoln died. Now occupied by 
Mr. Oldroyd and the Lincoln Museum. 



46 

Surgeons and physicians of the deceased. 

Hearse. 

Pall Bearers— Hon. Jessie K. Dubois, Hon. S. T. Lo- 
gan, Hon. (iiistavus Koerner, James L. Lamb, Esq., Hon. 
S. H. Treat, Col. John Williams, Erastus Wright, Esq., 
Hon. J. N. Brown, Jacob Bunn, Esq., C. W. Matheny, 
Esq., Elijah Ties, Esq., Hon. John T. Stuart. 

"Old Bob" or "Old Bobbin," the horse formerly rid- 
den by Abraham Lincoln in his political campaigns and 
law practice, off the lines of railroad. He was about six- 
teen years old, and was led by two colored grooms. 

Guard of honor in carriages, as follows: Brevet Brig. 
Gen. E. D. Townsend, Brevet Brig. Gen. Charles Thomas, 
Brig. Gen. A. B. Eaton, Brevet Maj. Gen. J. G. Barnard, 
Brig. Gen. G. D. Ramsey, Brig. Gen. A. P. Howe, Brevet 
Brig. Gen. D. C. MeCallum, Maj. Gen. D. Hunter, Gen. 
J. 0. Caldwell Brig. Gen. Elkin, Bear Admiral C. H. 
Davis, Capt. W. R. Taylor, U. S. Navy, Maj. Tli. Field, 
TJ. S. Marine Corps. 

Relatives and family friends in carriages. 

Fourth Division— Col. Speed Butler, marshal. Aides: 
Maj. Robert Allen, Capt. Louis Rosette and Capt. Albert 
Williams. 

Marshals of Sections— William Bennet, H. W. Ives, 
Philip C. Latham, William V. Roll, K. H. Richardson, 
J. E. Williams and J. D. Crabb. 

Senate— Hon. Messrs. James W. Nye, of Nevada; 
George H. Williams, of Oregon; Henry S. Lane, of In- 
diana; John B. Henderson, of Missouri; Lyman Trum- 
bull and Richard Yates, of Illinois ; Howe and Doolittle, 
of Wisconsin ; Foote, of Vermont; Chandler, of Michigan ; 
and George T. Brown, Sergeant-at-Arms of the U. S. 
Senate. 

House of Representatives— Hon. Schupler Colfax, 
Speaker; Hon. Messrs. Pike ,of Maine; Rollins, of New 
Hampshire; Baxter, of Connecticut; Harris, of New 



47 

York; Cowan, of Pennsylvania; Farnsworth, Washburn, 
Cook, Norton and Arnold, of Illinois; Morehead and 
Bailey, of Pennsylvania; Sloan, of Wisconsin; Wilson, of 
Iowa: Farquhar, of Indiana; Clarke, of Kansas; Shan- 
non, of California; Phelps, of Maryland; Hooper, of 
Massachusetts; Fervy, of Michigan; Newell, of New 
Jersey : Whaley, of West Virginia ; Schenck, of Ohio ; 
Smith, of Kentucky; Hitchcock, of Nebraska; and S. G. 
Ordway, Sergeant-at-Arms of the U. S. House of repre- 
sentatives. 

Territorial Representatives— Hon. Messrs. Bradford, 
of Colorado, and Weed, of Dakota. 

A portion of those who are named among the congres- 
sional delegation did not attend, but of those who were 
certainly with the funeral coretge from the beginning to 
the end of the journey were the Hon. Messrs. Wiliams, 
of Oregon ; Nye, of Nevada ; Washburn, of Illinois ; More- 
head, of Pennsylvania; Hooper, of Massachusetts; and 
Schenck, of Ohio. 

Some of the members of Congress in the Illinois dele- 
gation—Governor R. J. Oglesby, Hons. Jesse K. Dubois, 
Shelby M. Cullom and D. L. Phillips, Adjt. Gen. Isham 
N. Havnie, Col. J. H. Bowen, W. Hanna, E. F. Leonard, 
Dr. S.H. Melvin, Hon. 0. M. Hatch, Col. John Williams. 

Governors of states with their suites and governors of 
territories— Oglesby, of Illinois; Bramlette, of Kentucky; 
Morton, of Indiana ; Fletcher, of Missouri ; Stone, of 
Iowa ; Pickering, of Washington Territory ; and Wallace, 
of Idaho Territory. 

Members of the Illinois Legislature. Kentucky dele- 
gation. Chicago Committee of Reception and Escort. 

Fifth Division— Hon. George L. Huntington, marshal. 
Aides: Dr. S. Babcock, George Shepherd, Charles Ridg- 
ley, George Latham, Moses B. Condell. 

This division was composed of the municipal authority 
of Springfield and other cities. 



48 

Sixth Division— Hon. W. H. Hemdon, marshal. Aides : 
P. P. Enos, C. S. Zane, Dr. T. W. Dresser, John T. Jones, 
William G. Cochrane, James Rayborne, Charles Vincent, 
Edward Beach, John Peters, C. W. Reardon, R. C. 
Huskey. 

Marshals of Sections- Thomas Lyon, B. T. Hill, 

George Birge, Henry Yeakel, Jacob Half en, 

Sweet, Dewitt C. Hartwell, Hamilton Hancy, Fred B. 
Smith. 

The sixth division was composed of christian, sanitary 
and other commissions, aid societies, etc., and delegations 
from universities, colleges and other institutions of learn- 
ing. 

Reverend clergy, not officiating for the day. 

Members of the legal profession. 

Members of the medical profession. 

Representatives of the press. 

Seventh Division— Hon. Harmon G. Reynolds, marshal. 
Aides: George R. Tindale, John A. Hughes, James 
Smith, P. Fitzpatrick, Henry Shuck and Thomas 
'Conner. 

Marshals, of Sections— Capt. Charles Fisher, Frank 
W. Tracy, M. Conner, Frederick Smith, M. Armstrong, 
Richard Young. 

This division was composed of various bodies of Free 
Masons, Odd Fellows and other kindred fraternities and 
the firemen. 

Eighth Division— Hon. John W. Smith, marshal. 
Aides: Capt. Isaac Kevs, S. H. Jones, Hon. John W. 
Priest, 0. A. Abel, Maj. H .N. Alden, Wm. P. Grafton, 
G. A. Kimber, John W. Poorman, Henry Ridgley. J. H. 
Crow, John Davis, Presco Wright, N. V. Hunt, George 
Dalby, Alfred A. North, Hon. J. S. Bradford, Samuel P. 
Town send. 



49 

This division was composed of citizens generally, and 
nil who had not been assigned to some other place in the 
procession, bringing up the rear with the colored people. 

The procession thus formed received the corpse at the 
north gate of the State House square^ and moved east on 
Washington street to Eighth, south on Eighth, passing 
the Lincoln residence at the corner of Jackson and 
Eighth, to Cook, west on Cook to Fourth, north on Fourth, 
passing between the Governor's mansion— then the home 
of Governor Oglesby — and the fine residence of ex-Gover- 
nor Matteson, to Union, west on Union to Third, north on 
Third to the east entrance to Oak Ridge cemetery, one 
and one-half miles from the State House. 

On arriving at the cemetery, the remains were placed 
in the receiving tomb. The choir then sang the Dead 
March in Saul : 

"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb, 

Take this new treasure to thy trust," etc. 

Rev. Albert Hale, pastor of the Second Presbyterian 
church, of Springfield, then offered a fervent and ap- 
propriate pra} T er, after which the choir sang a dirge com- 
posed for the occasion bv L. W. Davis, music by George 
F. Root: 

"Farwell, Father, Friend and Guardian." 

A portion of the scripture was then read by Rev. N. W. 
Miner and the choir sang: 

''To Thee, O, Lord, I Yield My Spirit." 

President Lincoln's inaugural address of March 4, 
1865, was then read by Rev. A. C. Hubbard. A dirge was 
performed by the choir, and then followed the funeral 
oration by Rev. Dr. Simpson, Bishop of the Methodist 
Episcopal church. 

It was a review of the life of Abraham Lincoln, more 
particularly that part from the time he left Springfield, 



50 




Badge worn by citizens of Springfield at Lincoln's funeral. 



51 

Feb. 11, 1861, until his death. In drawing the contrast 
between his departure and return, the Bishop said : 

"Such a scene as his return to you was never known 
among the events of history. There was one for the Pa- 
triarch Jacob, which come up from Egypt, and the Egyp- 
tiaiis wondered at the evidences of reverence and filial 
affection which came up from the hearts of the Israelites. 
There was mourning when Moses fell upon the heigths of 
Pisgah, and was hid from human view. There has been 
mourning in the kingdoms of the earth when kings and 
princes have fallen, but never was there in the history of 
man such mourning as that which accompanied this 
funeral procession. 

Ear more eyes have gazed upon the face of the de- 
parted than ever looked upon the face of any other de- 
parted man. More eyes have looked upon the procession 
of sixteen hundred miles and more, by night and by day, 
by sunlight, dawn, twilight and by torchlight, than ever 
before watched the progress of a procession." 

In illustration of the universal feeling of sorrow, the 
orator said: 

"Nor is this mourning confined to anyone class or to 
any district or country. Men of all political parties and 
all religious creeds, have united in paying this mournful 
tribute. The Archbishop of the Roman Catholic church 
in New York an a Protestant minister walked side by 
side in the sad procession. A Jewish Rabbi performed 
part of the solemn services. 

But the great cause of this mourning is found in the 
man himself. Mr. Lincoln was no ordinary man; and I 
believe the conviction has been growing on the nation's 
mind, as it certainly has been on mine, especially in the 
last years of his administration, that by the hand of God 
he was especially singled out to guide our government 
in these troubled times. And it seems to me that the hand 
of God may be traced in many of the events connected 
with his historv. 



52 



y^aWjiuuw.u- » ■unai jiiwmiii 








Booth on the Scaffold. 
After the Trap was Sprung. 



53 

T recognize this in his physical education, which pre- 
pared him for enduring herculean labors. In the toils 
of his boyhood and the labors of his manhood, God was 
giving him an iron frame. Next to this was his identi- 
fication with the heart of the great people, understanding 
their feelings Because he was one of them, and connected 
with them in their movements and life. His education 
was simple. A few months spent in the school house 
gave him the elements of an education. He read Bun- 
van's Pilgrims' Progress, Aesop's Fables and Life of 
Washington, which gave the basis to his character, and 
which partly moulded his style. His early life, with its 
varied struggles, joined him indissolubly to the working 
masses, and no elevation in society diminished his respect 
for the sons of toil. He knew what it was to fell the tall 
trees of the forest and to stem the current of the broad 
Mississippi. His home was in the growing west— the 
heart of the Republic— and invigorated by the winds that 
swept over its prairies, he learned lessons of self reliance 
that sustained him in scenes of adversity. 

His genius was soon recognized as the true genius 
always will be, and he was placed in the Legislature of his 
adopted state. Already acquainted with the principles 
of law, he devoted his thoughts to matters of public in- 
terest and began to be looked upon as the coming states- 
man. As early as 1839 he presented resolutions in the 
Legislature asking for emancipation in the District of 
Columbia, while, with but rare exceptions, the whole pop- 
ular mind of his state was opposed to the measure. Prom 
that hour he was a steady and uniform friend of human- 
ity, and was preparing for the conflict of later years. 

It was not, however, chiefly by his mental faculties that 
he gained such control over mankind. His moral power 
gave him pre-eminence. The convictions of men that 
Abraham Lincoln was an honest man, led them to yield 
to his guidance. As has been said of Cobden, whom he 
greatly resembled, he made all men feel a kind of sense 



54 

of himself— a recognized individuality— a self-relying 
power. They saw in him a man whom they believed 
would do what was right regardless of consequences. It 
was this moral feeling which gave him the great hold 
upon the people and made his utterances almost ocular. 

But the great act of the mighty chieftain, on which his 
power shall rest long after his fame shall moulder away, 
is giving freedom to a race. We have all been taught to 
rever the sacred scriptures. We have thought of Moses, 
of his power, and the prominence he gave to the moral 
law; how it lasts, and how his name towers high among 
the names in heaven, and how he delivered those millions 
of his kindred out of bondage. And yet we may assert 
that Abraham Lincoln, by his proclamation, liberated 
more enslaved people than ever Moses set free— and 
those not his kindred. God has seldom given such op- 
portunity to man. When other events shall have been 
forgotten ; when this world shall become a network of re- 
publics ; when every throne shall be swept from the face 
of the earth; when literature shall enlighten all minds; 
when the claims of humanity shall be recognized every- 
where, this act shall still be conspicuous on the pages of 
history. And we are thankful that God gave to Abraham 
Lincoln the decision and wisdom and grace to issue that 
proclamation, which stands high above all other papers 
which have been penned by inspired men. 

Look over all his speeches— listen to all his utterances 
—he never spoke unkindly of any man. Even the rebels 
received no word of anger from him, and the last day of 
his life illustrated in a remarkable manner his forgiving 
disposition. A dispatch was received that afternoon that 
Thompson and Tucker were trying to escape through 
Maine, and it was proposed to arrest them. Mr. Lincoln, 
however, preferred to let them quietly escape. He was 
seeking to save the very men who had been plotting his 
destruction; and this morning we read a proclamation 
offering $25,000 for the arrest of these men as aiders and 



55 

abettors of bis assassination; so tbat in bis expiring acts, 
be was saying: 'Father, forgive tbern, tbey know not wbat 
they do.' As a ruler, I doubt if any president ever 
sbowed such trust in God, or, in public documents, so 
frequently referred to Divine aid. Often did be remark 
to friends and delegations that bis hope for our success 
rested in bis conviction that God would bless our efforts 
because we were trying to do rigbt. To the address of 
a large religious body be replied, 'Thanks be unto God, 
who, in our national trials, givetb us the church.' To a 
minister who said he 'hoped the Lord was on our side,' 
he replied that it 'gave him no concern whether the Lord 
was on our side or not' and then added 'for I know the 
Lord is always on the side of right,' and with deep feel- 
ing continued : 'But God is my witness that it is my con- 
stant anxiety and prayer that both myself and this na- 
tion should be on the Lord's side.' " 

After the oration or eulogy a requiem was performed 
by the choir, a prayer offered by the Rev. Dr. Harkey, 
followed by the singing of 

"Peace, troubled soul." 

Eev. Dr. P. D. Gurley then arose, made a few remarks 
and the closing prayer, after which the following funeral 
hymn, composed by him for the occasion, was sung: 

Rest, noble martyr, rest in peace; 

Rest with the true and brave, 
Who, like thee, fell in freedom's cause, 

The nation's life to save. 

Thy name shall live while time endures, 

And men shall say of thee. 
He saved his country from its foes, 

xVnd bade the slave be free. 

These deeds shall be thy monument, 
Better than brass or stone ; 
Tbey leave thy fame in glory's light 
Unrivaled and alone. 



56 




Flag That Caught Booth's Spur. 



57 




Booth Jumping from the Box. 



58 

This consecrated spot shall be 

To freedom ever dear ; 
And freedom's sons of every race 

Shall weep and worship here. 

0, God, before whom we in tears 

Onr fallen chief deplore, 
Grant that the cause for which he died 

May live forever more. 

The services closed by the choir singing the Doxology, 
and the benediction by Dr. Gurley, when the vast multi- 
tude melted away and sought the railroad depots, from 
which the trains bore them to their homes in all parts of 
the nation— east, west, north and south. Thus ended the 
most grand and sublime funeral pageant the world ever 
saw. The injunction so often repeated on the way— 

' ' Bear him gently to his rest, ' ' 

was reverently obeyed, and Mr. Lincoln's own words, 

"The heart of the nation throbs heavily at the portals 
of the tomb," 

were realized with a force of which he little thought at 
the time they were spoken. 

In the largest number of places where the escort 
stopped to give an opportunity for public honors, the 
local authorities provided guards to relieve the guard of 
honor detailed by the • Secretary of War, but in no in- 
stance did they all leave the remains. They were acting 
under orders to guard the body of Abraham Lincoln until 
it should be deposited in its final resting place at Spring- 
field, Illinois, and during all the journey there was not a 
moment but one or more -of these veteran officers with 
bronzed visages and gray hairs could not be seen near the 
body. 

According to the special order issued from the War 
Department, April IS. 1865, all arrangements by state or 
municipal authorities for doing honor to the remains 



59 




The chair in which Lincoln was sitting when he was shot. 



60 

were to be under the direction of the military commander 
of the division, department or district in which the pro- 
posed demonstrations were to take place. In order to 
see that the provisions of this order were carried out, 
Major General Cadwallader, commander of the depart- 
ment of Pennsylvania, joined the cortege at the state line 
between Maryland and Pennsylvania. He continued with 
the funeral party until it reached Jersey City, when he 
^ns relieved by Major General John A. Dix, commander 
of the department of New York. General Dix traveled 
with the cortege through New York and across the 
northern end of Pennsylvania. Major General Joseph 
Hooker, commander of the department of the Ohio, re- 
lieved General Dix at Wickliffe, Ohio. General Hooker 
continued with the funeral cortege until the closing cere- 
monies at Springfield, Illinois. 

I have omitted to mention the estimates, v given in the 
papers of the number who viewed the remains at different 
points, but summing them all up at the close, I feel justi- 
fied in saying that more than one million men and women 
must have looked upon the dead face of Abraham Lincoln, 
an event which has no parallel in the history of the world. 

In the course of the entire journey there can not be a 
line or even a word found on record urging the people 
to turn out in honor of the deceased. The assembling of 
such multitudes was. in all cases, spontaneous. Day and 
night, cold or warm, rain or shine, for twelve long days 
and nights, it was only necessary for the people to know 
the time the cortege was expected to arrive at any given 
point to bring them together in great numbers. 

The annexed table will exhibit the distance traveled by 
the funeral train that bore the remains of Abraham Lin- 
coln from Washington City to Springfield, Illinois. The 
distance is also given between the different points at 
which the remains were taken from the train in com- 
pliance with the desire of the people to do honor to the 
memory of the martyred president: 



61 

Miles. 

From Washing-ton to Baltimore. 40 

From Baltimore via York to Harrisburg 84 

From Harrisburg to Philadelphia 107 

From Philadelphia via Trenton to New York 87 

From New l r ork to Albany 142 

From Albany via Selmectady, Utica, Syracuse, 

Rochester and Patavia to Buffalo 296 

From Buffalo via Dunkirk and Erie to Cleveland. . . 183 
From Cleveland via Crestline and Delaware to 

Columbus 138 

From Columbus via Urbana, Piqua, Greenville, 

Richamond and Kingston to Indianapolis 188 

From Indianaolis via Lafayette, and Michigan City 

to Chicago 212 

From Chicago via Joliet, Chenoa and Bloomington 

to Spring-field 185 

Total 1,662 

Tt is but natural that the very best that could be written 
would appear in those papers of Mr. Lincoln's own way 
of thinking in politics ; but some of the finest articles ap- 
peared in papers that had always been opposed to him 
politically. The Daily Register, a Democratic paper pub- 
lished at Springfield, in its issue of Saturday evening, 
April 15, 1865. after relating the news of the assassina- 
tion says : 

"Just in the hour when the crowning triumph of his 
life awaited him: when the result which he had labored 
and prayed for four years with incessant toil, stood 
almost accomplished, when he could begin clearly to see 
the promised land of his longing— the restored Union- 
even as Moses from the top of Pisgah, looked forth upon 
the Canaan he had for forty years been striving to attain, 
the assassin's hand puts a rude period to his life and to 
his hopes. As Moses of old, who had led God's people 
through the gloom and danger of the wilderness, died 
when on the eve of realizing all that his hopes had pic- 




SPRINGFIELD, ILL. LINCOLN MONUMENT. Co« Brothers 1 Book Store. 



THE LINCOLN MONUMENT. 

Unveiled and dedicated October 15, 1874. Dimensions, 12 l / 2 
feet bv 119^ feet square and 100 feet high. Designed and 
modeled by Larkin E. Mead. Cost $212,000. 

Emblematical of the constitution of the United States. Presi- 
dent Lincoln standing, coat of arms with the infantry, navy, 
artillery and the cavalry marshalled around him, wields all for 
holding the states together in a perpetual bond of union, without 
which we could never hope to effect the great enemy of human 
freedom. 



63 

tured, so Lincoln is cut off just as the white wing of 
peace begins to reflect its silvery radiance over the red 
billows of war. It is hard for a great man to die, but 
doubly cruel that he should be cut off after such a career 
as that of him whom we mourn to day." 

And the same paper of April 18th says : 

"History has recorded no such scene of bloody terror. 
The murder of monarchs has been written. Caesar was 
slain in the Senate chamber; Gustavus was butchered in 
the ball room ; but these were ursurpers and tyrants, not 
the chosen heads of a people, empowered to select their 
rulers. And, Oh horrible! that he should have been 
assassinated when his best efforts to tranquilize the fears 
and furj 7 " of his people were so nearly realized. We are 
dumb with sorrow." 

The Illinois State Journal, at Springfield, the oldest 
paper in the state, north of Edwardsville, was the first 
in which Lincoln's name ever appeared in connection with 
any office — he having been announced as a candidate for 
Representative of Sangamon county, in its issue of March 
15, 1832. It was then Whig and is now Republican in 
politics and supported Lincoln every time he was ever a 
candidate. The Daily Journal of Saturday morning, 
April 15, 1865, gave the telegraphic announcement of his 
assassination, without comment. Monday morning, the 
17th, it said: 

"Abraham Lincoln is dead." These portentious words 
as they sped over the wires throughout the length and 
breadth of the land on Saturday morning last, sent a 
thrill of agony through millions of loyal hearts, and 
shrouded a nation, so lately rejoicing in the hour of 
victory, in the deepest sorrow. The blow came at a mo- 
ment so unexpected and was so sudden and staggering— 
the crime by which he fell was so atrocious and the man- 
ner of it so revolting, that men were unable to realize the 
fact that one of the purest citizens, the noblest of patriots, 
the most beloved and honored of presidents, the most 



64 

forebearing and magnanimous of rulers, had perished at 
the hands of an assassin. The horrofying details recalled 
only the scenes of blood which have disgraced barbaric 
ages. People were unwiling to believe that, in our own 
time, there could be found men capable of a. crime so 
utterly fiendish and brutal. And yet this is 

called chivalry. 

President Lincoln died at the hand of slavery. It was 
slavery that conceived the fearful deed. It was slavery 
that sought and found the willing instrument and sped 
the fatal ball; it is slavery alone that will justify the act. 
Henseforth men will lok upon slavery as indeed 'the sum 
of all villanies." 

The same paper of Saturday morning, the 22d, says: 

"A week ago this morning the intelligence first startled 
the nation that a crime of the most fearful character had 
been perpetrated in Washington. The spirit of our 
honored and beloved president, the most genial, patient 
and forebearing of men, but the victim of the most 
atrocious assassination, was then taking its flight to the 
'God who gave it.' 

"One week has passed and such a week was never 
known in this or any other land. The popular sorrow, 
instead of abating by time, has grown even more intense, 
as the people have been gradually enabled to comprehend 
the terrible facts. The heart of the nation has been 
moved as it was never moved before. Every village and 
city of the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have 
joined in the most heartfelt demonstrations of grief in 
view of the national loss. Today the sorrowful cortage 
accompanying the remains of our beloved president is 
at last approaching the home whence, four years ago, he 
set out with many misgivings, but strong in the sense of 
duty, to assume the reins of government to which the 
sufferages of the people had called him. The eyes of 
the whole nation are upon it, and wherever that dark and 



65 

sorrow burdened train appears it is attended by the 
lamentations of the people." 

Friday morning, the 28th, the Journal announced the 
death of the assassin and said: 

"Retribution, swift and sure, has fallen upon his 
murderer ! J. Wilkes Booth, the author of that atrocious 
deed, lies as lifeless as Abraham Lincoln. * * It 

is no compensation for the loss to the nation of such a 
man as Abraham Lincoln, that judgment has overtaken 
his murderer. * * * The only satisfaction we feel is 
that justice has been done." 

The Journal for Wednesday morning, May 3d, says : 

"Today all that is mortal of Abraham Lincoln comes 
back to us to be deposited among a people with whom he 
spent so many years of his life, and among whom he 
hoped, his work being done, to spend the evening of his 
days." 

The Journal, Thursday, May 4th : 

' ' Today we lay him reverently to rest, amid the scenes 
he loved so well. Millions will drop a tear to his memory, 
and future generations will make pilgrimages to his tomb. 
Peace to his ashes." 



66 





67 



THE STEALING OF THE BODY. 



In the autumn of 1876, P. D. Tyrrell, the chief operative 
of the United States secret service for the district in 
which Chicago is situated, had his suspicions that a cer- 
tain drinking saloon in that city was a rendezvous for 
counterfeiters. He could not learn anything by going 
there himself, because some of the men whose presence 
excited his suspicions knew him personally, and for him 
to appear would put them on the alert. In order to ob- 
tain the desired information, he employed a young man, 
unknown to those parties, and instructed him in the 
manner he should proceed to gain their confidence. He 
was first to convince them that he was the same kind of 
man they were, which he did, by gradual approaches, so 
thoroughly that they revealed to him the fact that they 
were not only engaged in putting counterfeit money in 
circulation, but were then preparing for a speculation on 
a much larger scale. They told him that they expected 
to steal the remains of President Lincoln from the monu- 
ment in Springfield, bury it in some secure place, and 
then disperse, probably leave the United States, and 
watch the accounts in the newspapers for a favorable 
time to enter into negotiations for the return of the body. 
They expressed the utmost confidence that they could in 
that way obtain at least two hundred thousand dollars 
and the release of a celebrated counterfeit engraver who 
was serving a ten years' sentence in the Joliet peniten- 
tiary for engraving and printing counterfeit money. 
Wishing to avail themselves of the remarkable shrewd- 
ness of the young man, whose acquaintance they were 
thus forming, they proposed that if he would join and 
assist, he might have a share in the profits. 



68 

As he bad only: started out to obtain information about 
their counterfeiting operations, this discovery was quite 
startling to him. He made some pretext for time to con- 
sider, and at the earliest opportunity reported to the 
officer who employed him, and asked for instructions. 
The officer then authorized and instructed him to accede 
to their proposition, join them and "keep with them in 
every movement and report to him daily, or more fre- 
quently, as circumstances seemed to indicate. The young 
man did not lose much time in letting the conspirators 
know that he would take part with them. After that he 
was at every meeting of the gang, numbering several 
others besides the two whose confidence he first gained. 
It was at length decided that the stealing should be done 
Tuesday night, November 7, 1876, the night after the 
day on which the presidential election was to be held. 

That time was chosen for the reason that if they were 
seen out unusually late, each party would be likely to 
conclude that the other was in search of election news, 
and in that way they hoped to disarm suspicion. 

The two conspirators and the young man who had 
been sent to ferret out their counterfeiting operations, by 
which he was led to the discovery of the plot, started 
from Chicago at nine o 'clock on the evening of November 
6th, by the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis railroad. The 
operative of the secret service was kept fully posted, and 
with two assistants boarded the rear sleeping car of the 
same train as it moved out of the depot. 

All parties arrived in Springfield at six o'clock on the 
morning of November the 7th, the train being two hours 
behind time. The day was spent by the conspirators in 
perfecting their plans, and by the operative of the secret 
service and his assistants by watching the conspirators 
and perfecting their plans also. Meanwhile balloting for 
president of the United States was going on over the en- 
tire nation. At five o'clock that afternoon the train 
brought two other assistant detectives from Chicago, one 



69 

of them an ex-chief of the United States secret service for 
the whole nation. There was not a ray of sunshine 
reached the earth in central Illinois that day, and in con- 
sequence of the thick clouds, night came on early. About 
six o'clock the operative of the secret service, with four 
trained detectives, including the ex-chief, also a reporter 
from a Chicago paper, approached the monument, two 
miles north of the city. They were admitted to the 
memorial hall at the south end by the writer as custodian 
of the monument. The outer door was then locked and 
the entire party conducted through the back door to a 
point where lights could not be seen from the outside. 
There lamps were lighted and one man placed inside 
against the solid wall, opposite the sarcophagus at the 
north end of the monument. He was instructed to remain 
in that position until he heard sounds as if work was be- 
ing done on the sarcophagus. In that event he was to 
find his way back to memorial hall — lighted lamps having 
been placed as guides — and report to the officers. The 
five officers and the writer kept their positions, in dark- 
ness that could almost be felt, from two and a half to 
three hours, when footsteps were heard approaching the 
outer door, which is closed by two shutters, one of wood 
and glass, the other of iron rods. Two men appeared, one 
bearing a lighted bull 's eye, or dark lantern. They soon 
found that both doors were locked, and seemed satisfied 
that there was not any person about the monument. 
They then went around to the north end, one hundred and 
twenty feet distant, and by sawing and filing broke the 
padlocks to the grated door at the entrance to the cata- 
comb, and commenced taking the marble sarcophagus to 
pieces. The man who was placed inside to listen, passed 
through among the labyrinth of walls to memorial hall, 
and reported that he could hear the conspirators at work 
on the sarcophagus. For several minutes hurried and 
excited whisperings were going on between the five offi- 
cers in the hall. The writer was greatly puzzled to know 
why they did not go out and move upon the enemy at 



70 




Levi Johnson kept a meat market in Springfield at the time 
Lincoln lived there and furnished meat to the Lincoln family during 
their stay in Springfield. 



71 

once. It subsequently transpired that the officers never 
expected to go out on the report of the one who was 
listening inside. Placing him there was merely an extra 
precaution that they might know when the work com- 
menced. The young man who had discovered the plot 
in Chicago, was with the conspirators, under instructions 
from the operative of the secret service who was in the 
hall that he was to remain with the conspirators until the 
door was forced and they began to work on the sarco- 
phagus. Then he was to go round outside and give a 
signal at the entrance of memorial hall. The officers ex- 
pected then to leave the hall, move quickly around to the 
catacomb and capture the miscreants at their work. 

Tt was afterwards learned that when the lock was 
forced, and before they commenced work on the sarco- 
phagus, the conspirators pushed the young man into a 
corner of the half circular catacomb and gave him the 
lantern to hold. He at once recognized the movement to 
mean that they would shoot him dead should he attempt 
to dispose of the light and pass out of the door. There- 
fore, he could no less than to hold it until they had taken 
the marble sarcophagus apart and drawn the wooden and 
lead coffin, with the body partly out, that they might con- 
veniently take it up and carry it away. The conspira- 
tors then stepped outside and started the young man off 
for a horse and wagon to haul the body away. They 
agreeing to remain at the door until his return. He had 
not secured a team, but made them believe he had one at 
the east gate. He started in that direction as though he 
was going for the team, but the night was cloudy and 
exceedinlgy dark, and as soon as he had passed from 
their sight, he turned to the right, ran to the door of 
Memorial Hall and gave the signal agreed upon. The 
officers went quickly around, expecting to capture the 
conspirators, but they had escaped. They were too 
shrewd to reinain at the door of the catacomb lest others 
might be looking for them, and so withdrew about thirty- 
five yards from the monument, and lay down by a small 



72 

oak tree, from which they saw the officers enter the cata- 
comb, and beard their exclamations of disappointment. 
They afterwards told the young man that they then 
thought it would be more prudent for them to make their 
escape. For ten days the conspirators could not be found. 
At the end of that time the young man having retained 
their confidence, informed the officers that the two were 
together at the same drinking place where he entered into 
the scheme with them. The officers entered the saloon, 
one or two at a time, until they were in sufficient force to 
overpower and handcuff them in a few seconds. They 
were brought to Springfield, tried and sent to peniten- 
tiary for one year. Only one year because there was no 
law in Illinois that made the stealing of a dead body a 
penitentiary offense. A law was enacted and approved 
May 21, 1879, which came into force July 1st of the same 
year, under which a party convicted of the crime is sub- 
ject to a penalty of not less than one nor more than ten 
years in the penitentiary. 

After the attempt to steal the body of President Lin- 
coln, in November, 1876, it was secretly taken from the 
sarcophagus and carried through Memorial Hall to the 
interior of the monument, where it lay on timbers be- 
tween two rough walls until November, 1876, when it 
was moved to dryer part of the interior and buried. This 
was done for protection against any other attempt that 
might be made. A few nights after the death of Mrs. 
Lincoln, in July, 1882, her body was secretly taken from 
the crypt where it had been publicly deposited, and 
buried by the side of her husband. April 14, 1887, the 
twenty-second anniversary of the assassination of Presi- 
dent Lincoln, both bodies were exhumed, the coffin con- 
taining the remains of Lincoln was opened, and the bod}' 
was fully identified. Both bodies were then buried in the 
catacomb. The history of the attempt to steal the re- 
mains of Lincoln and the transactions of the Linclon 
Guard of Honor from a separate volume will appear. 



73 




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74 

The following are a few of the mottoes carried in pro- 
cession at the funeral : 

''With tears we resign thee 
To God and history." 

"The purposes of the Almighty are perfect and must 
prevail." 

"Our guiding star has fallen, our nation mourns." 

At Chicago four hundred colored citizens marched in 
line bearing the mottoes : 

"We mourn our loss" and "rest in peace with the 
nation's tears." 

Over the door of the court house, Chicago, was the in- 
scription : 

"Illinois clasps to her bosom her slain and glorified 
son." 

Over the north door was : 

"The beauty of Israel is slain upon her high places." 

There were hundreds of mottoes displayed, of which 
the following are a few: 

"In sorrowing grief the nation's tears are spent. 
Humanity has lost a friend and we a president." 

"Bear him gently to his rest." 

"We loved him much, but now we love him more." 

"Ours the cross— thine the crown." * 

"Freedom's noblest sacrifice." 

Emancipation Proclamation— "Upon this act I invoke 
the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God." 

"To Union may our heartfelt call 
And brotherly love attune us all." 

"Nations swell thv funeral cry." 



75 

"Young, old, high and low, 
The same devotion show." 

f. 
■"And over the coffin man planteth hope." 

"Though dead, yet he speaketh." 

"He won the wreath of fame, 

And wrote on memory's scroll a deathless name." 

"Look how honor glorifies the dead." 

"Know ye not that a great man has fallen this day in 
Israel." 

"The great emancipator." 

"He left us sustained by our prayers. 
He returns embalmed in our tears." 

At Indianapolis the colored Masons, in their appro- 
priate clothing, and colored citizens generally, turned out 
in procession and visited the remains in a body. At the 
head of the procession they carried the Emancipation 
Proclamation. At intervals banners were seen bearing 
among others, the following inscriptions: 

"Colored men always loyal." 

"Lincoln, martyr of liberty." 

"He lives in our memories." 

"Slavery is dead." 

Among the mottoes displayed at Michigan City, Ind., 
were the following: 

"Noblest martyr to freedom, sacred thy dust, hallowed 
thy resting place." 



76 




Annie Wilson Vantrice was a school girl at the time of Lincoln's 
burial: she sanq" at his funeral. 



77 



COLORED PEOPLE AT LINCOLN'S FUNERAL. 



At the time of Lincoln's death there was a great many 
colored people scattered throughout the north. These 
had been away from slavery long enough to make some 
degree of progress in education and advancement. In all 
the large cities of the north they had formed Masonic 
lodges from the charter they had obtained from the 
Grand Master of England. In every city where public 
funerals were held, these lodges turned out in full regalia. 

In Washington at the time of the assassination there 
was gathered a great many colored troops waiting for the 
grand review. While the body lay in state in the White 
House, members of the United States colored cavalry 
were placed on guard. 

The funeral was held in the capitol and the long pro- 
cession was led by a detachment of colored troops. 
Hundreds of colored people brought up the rear of the 
procession. 

At the station where the funeral cortege boarded the 
train for Mr. Lincoln's old home in Springfield, Illinois, 
was two thousand colored troops drawn up in line beside 
the track. They stood with arms reversed and heads 
bowed and we eping like children at the death of a father. 
Their grief was of such undoubted sincerity as to effect 
the whole vast multitude. Dignified governors of states, 
grave senators and scarworn army officers, who had 
passed through scenes of bloodshed unmoved, lost their 
self control and melted to tears in the presence of such 
unaffected sorrow. 

In New York City five thousand colored people had 
made arrangements to march in funeral procession, but 



78 

the city authorities gave them to understand that their 
presence was not desired. When the committee on 
funeral arrangements heard of this they sent out mes- 
sages to the colored people urging them to turn out and 
told them they should have every protection, but only 
three hundred answered the call. 

In Philadelphia where the body rested in Independence 
Hall, an old colored woman approached the committee of 
arrangements with a large wreath in her hand and with 
tears in her eyes requested that it might be placed on the 
coffin. When her request was granted her countenance 
beamed with satisfaction. The wreath bore this inscrip- 
tion: "The nation mourns his loss;" "he still lives in the 
hearts of the people." 

The banner carried by the colored people had been 
prepared by the ladies of Henry Ward Beecher 's church 
and was inscribed on one side: "Abraham Lincoln, our 
Emancipation," on the other side, "To millions of bonds- 
men he liberty gave." This banner was carried by four 
freedmen just from the south. 

In Springfield the colored Free Masons and school 
children turned out in procession and a long line of 
colored people stood at the entrance of the cemetery and 
as the hearse passed them bearing the body of the dead 
President, they fell on their knees in the muddy street. 
It was their farwell to Lincoln. 

When the first call was made for contributions toward 
the building of a monument for the great leader, the 
colored people were the first to respond. A colored Sun- 
day school in Cairo was among the first to respond The 
colored soldiers, not yet disbanded, gave large sums, 
large for them. The 73rd Regiment United States 
colored troops, sent $1,437, a larger amount than was sent 
by any other individual or organization, except the state 
of Illinois. An aged colored woman, Charlotte Scott, 
who had received her freedom by the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation, was living at Marietta, Ohio, when President 




James Young was steward at the Leland in Springfield at the 
time of the attempt to steal Lincoln's body. After the attempt, 
the casket containing 1 the body was opened and the state officials 
and monument association viewed the remains, so they might be 
able to say that it contained Lincoln's body. By special invita- 
tion, Mr. Young accompanied them, and was the last colored man 
to look upon the face of Lincoln. 



80 

Lincoln was assassinated. She at once said, "The colored 
people have lost their best friend on earth. Mr. Lincoln 
was our best friend and I will give five dollars of my 
wages toward building a monument." This circumstance 
being related in the Missouri Democrat of May 2, 1865, 
caused more than sixteen thousand dollars to be raised 
by the colored people. The fund was held in St. Louis 
by Hon. James E. Yeatman for several years, but was 
pledged to the National Lincoln Monument Association 
at Washington City. 

When the monument was finished, it was dedicated 
October 15, 1874, and the body of Lincoln was laid to rest 
in the place that had been prepared for him. The exer- 
cises were opened by Bishop W T ayman of the A. M. E. 
church. He came from Baltimore to be present on the 
occasion, by special invitation by Governor John L. 
Palmer. 

When the news of Lincoln's death reached the outside 
world, condolences came in from countries far and near; 
from China, Japan and the gold coast of Africa. From 
the islands of the sea. All nations and people were for 
once in accord, each and all expressed deep sorrow at the 
untimely death of the great emancipator. As a sample 
of the many condolences received from the colored people 
of other lands ; we quote three of the six resolutions from 
Liberia : 

Resolved, By the President of the Republic of Liberia 
and his cabinet, in council, that it is withsincere regret 
and pain, as well as with feelings of horror and indigna- 
tion, the government of Liberia has heard of the foul 
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the 
United States. 

Resolved, That the government and people of Liberia 
deeply sympathize with the government and people of the 
United States, in the sad loss they have sustained by the 
death of so wise, so just, so efficient, so vigorous and yet 
so merciful a ruler. 




Norsis Donnegan was for many years laundress at the Lincoln 
home. Fifty cents was the price of a day's work in those days, 
but Lincoln thought the work worth more than that, so every 
week he waited for Norsis on her way home and gave her an 
extra quarter. 

When the newly elected president left Springfield for Washing- 
ton, she delivered to them a dozen new shirts that Lincoln had 
had made t.o order. No doubt he was buried in one of those 
very shirts. The mother of the Donnegans, Mrs. Knox, was a 
friend of Mrs. Lincoln's people in Kentucky. 



82 

Resolved, That while with due sorrow the government 
and people of Liberia weep with those who mourn the 
loss of so good and great a chief, they are, nevertheless, 
mindful of the loss they themselves have experienced in 
the death of the great philanthropist whose virtues can 
never cease to be told as long as the Republic of Liberia 
shall endure ; so long as there survives a member of the 
negro race to tell of the chains that have been broken, of 
the griefs that have been allayed, of the broken hearts 
that have been bound up by him who, as it were a new 
creation, breathed life into four millions of that race 
whom he found oppressed and degraded." 

While the colored people had sentered all their hopes 
on Lincoln and anxiously watched his every move, there 
were others who were devoting their lives to the great 
abolition movement. Sumner in the Senate was giving 
his whole time and attention to the civil rights bill and 
other measures that would in some measure ameliorate 
the black man's conditions. Lovejoy, of Illinois, gave up 
his life for the same principle; John Brown went to a 
disgraceful death because of his freedom theories. Each 
one who came to the front as a leader had a large follow- 
ing. These were sure that they were right, but they had 
only one view point, and that was to free the slaves at 
any price. They were extremists who could see no gain 
in waiting. They beseiged the White House with advice 
and petitions. There was even delegatians from foreign 
countries. But Mr. Lincoln, better versed in international 
law, knew that to free the slaves in the earlier years of 
the war would be placing the north in the wrong and 
giving the south a chance to enlist England and possibly 
other foreign countries as her allies. He knew that the 
hour had not come. With the fate of the Union and fu- 
ture welfare of seventy milions of people resting on him, 
Iip would not, could not be precipitate amid the storm of 
conflicting opinions that met him at every turn. He 
steered a straight course and came out at last victorious. 




William Donnegan spent the greater part of his life in Spring- 
field, and was well thought of by the better class of white people. 
In his younger days he was an expert shoemaker and made many 
pairs of shoes for the president. He was the only shoemaker in 
town who could fit Mr. Lincoln's feet, which were not mates. 

He was killed by the mob in his own house where his widow 
still lives. 



84 




85 




Joseph Loman was for many years a servant in the Grand 
Central hotel in Chicago. 

During Mrs. Lincoln's long sojourn at that hotel, Joe waited 
on her. He was the only servant that she would have. When 
displeased with him she would ask him if he remembered who 
freed him. Joe would look at her with tears in his eyes and 
say, "Mrs. Lincoln, I can't never forget who freed me." 




Augustus Johnson was a soldier in the civil war. He belonged 
to the 8th Heavy Artillery, "Co. H." He, with others, stood 
guard over the murdered president, for which service he is pre- 
sented with a medal each year by the state fair officials. 



86 

To the south Lincoln represented the whole north. He, 
plainer than any other man, had told them of their sins 
and was hated and feared accordingly. 

Tt was from hearing the white folks talk that the colored 
people learned to look on him as their friend and to re- 
gard Mm as their only hope of salvation. From the very 
first they have been ready at all times to show their love, 
loyalty and veneration for the name and memory of Lin- 
coln, indeed, so deep is this feeling in the hearts of some 
of them, they feel it no sacrilige when they think it was 
Christ himself who came out from the mysterious ob- 
scurity arid gave his life anew to save them. 



87 



LINCOLN THE SEER. 



Perhaps the greatest event in history, ancient and modern, was 
the liberating of the slaves. The transition from the depths of 
slavery to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship was a 
change frought with many dangers. 

The Abolition party, a small minority, was looked upon as 
fanatics and criminals. John Brown payed for his freedom 
theories with his life. 

To free the slave was a dream, dear to the heart of Lincoln. 
Even though this is true, he was slow to make use of the oppor- 
tunity that came to him. He had treasured this thought all his 
life, yet at the last moment while he waited pen in hand he plead, 
''Come back, come back." This phrase of his showed the true 
brotherhood, fatherhood and real humanity that were the greatest 
characteristics of the great emancipator. 

Of those who laughed at his quaint sayings or who found fault 
with him because of his eeming disregard of serious questions, 
few realized that there was often a world of meaning in his 
"jokes." 

One Saturday night he went into the barbership of Preston 
Donnegan to be shaved. He was well known to the colored 
man who had listened to many of his speeches and had come to 
regard him as a real friend of the race. When Donnegan had 
finished shaving him and was brushing the future president's hat 
and coat, he asked, "Mr. Lincoln, if you were to be president of 
this here United States, would you free the slaves ? ' ' Mr. Lincoln 
answered, "Why, Preston, I thought you knew that if were presi- 
dent and a bill to free the slaves came up before me, I would be 
the last man to sign it." He put on his hat and walked out, leav- 
ing the barber very downcast. 

A week later he went back for another shave. There was a 
decided chill in Mr. Donnegan 's manner and he was vey deliber- 
ate in his movements. But the shaving and brushing were 



88 

finally accomplished, then he said in a tone that showed how 
deeply he was hut, "I don't like you as well as I did, Mr. Lin- 
coln.'"' "Why," said Mr. Lincoln, "What is the matter, Preston?" 
"I'll tell you," answered Preston, "You said the other day that 
if you was president you wouldn't free us poor colored folks." 
Lincoln explained to him that a bill must go to the president to 
sign, before it becomes a law. 

Forty years may bring about many changes, but the most san- 
guine could hardly have foreseen the very remarkable difference 
in thought, feeling and conditions of that day and this. 

Those of the south, who felt only hatred and aversion for the 
man who opposed them, have come to share with the north in 
the feeling of love and veneration that is expressed everywhere 
for the great president. 

They have a clearer understanding of those words that were 
the keynote of Lincoln's life. "With malice toward none, but 
charity for all." 

As the years pass they will be more and more ready to ac- 
knowledge that Lincoln was every man's friend. 

When President Lincoln took the responsibility of freeing the 
slaves, did he look forward with true prophecy and see the 
colored man come up from the cotton fields and sugar plantations 
of the southland and take his place in the grand processional 
of the ages, still willing as he had always been to share the white 
man's burden. 

From a life long study of the negro character, Lincoln was 
better able, perhaps, to judge a people that offered so many con- 
tradictory traits. He looked beneath the surface and saw a truer 
manhood, a more earnest, devoted womanhood than would seem 
possible to one who looked only on the surface. 

It is true that Lincoln had little opportunity to know the negro 
under other environments than slavery, but early in life he had 
formed his opinion regarding this iniquitous system that was so 
degrading to white and black alike. To Lincoln, who was the 
very soul of truth, there was something especially revolting in 
the* idea of America 's posing as the land of the free, yet have 
within her borders five million slaves which, tho' confined to one 
section, were fast reaching out and threatening to invade the 
whole land. 

To Lincoln war and slavery was not a new thought, but no 
just and thinking man will doubt for a moment that Lincoln's 
first and dearest wish was for the Union, rather than freedom. 



89 

Still, one may readily realize thai a1 first faintly, then more 
and more clearly, he heard the same voice bidding him "go for- 
ward." As the commander in chief of a great army ;in<l nav\ 
he found himself an arbitrator who should decide the destiny of 
a great nation, who, north and south, east and west, were his own 
people. So wisely and so well he performed the duties of his 
sacred office that the nations of the earth have come to regard 
with wonder and admiration the American people who have 
buried all differences and met as blood brothers at the grave of 
the beloved Lincoln, who. in the storm and stress of battle, looked 
forward to this day of reconciliations. 



H 11 



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